The death of a salesman

Decadence of Youth

2010-09-07T00:47:00.000-07:00

I began this decade as a nice bright kid , just beginning college in the cowboy heartland of India. It was the end of 1999, Y2K was biting us , Indian economy was just beginning to come out of a prolonged slump, being pulled up the Internet frenzy.

Cricket was huge and Karan Johar and Adi chopra were at the peak of their prowess.I had just opened my email account.I welcomed the millennium without discovering the joys and vices of alcohol.Azhar was a cricketer and Farhan akhtar a director then. I cut my hair short after Dil Chahta Hai. Pity it never grew back.I had a lot more hair and a lot more hope.I wanted to start chicken roll shops.

Its been 10 long years since then and quite a roller coaster journey .

The teens have ended and i will be at the doorstep of thirties when the new decade begins.

34-30-28-34.
That's been the journey of my waistline,

Quizzing and Jogging
are now just pastimes,

but my journey is the tale of this storyline

Downhill .
that's been my story with my hairline,

Uphill .
has been my struggle with love line.

but it seems to have hit the correct rhyme.

My Job
keeps moving me in elliptical paths like tramlines

East of India
is where i have come back from time to time

but the best part of my life have been the places where i have got to dine

School and college
appears like some era Byzantine,

These days,
Its all all about office from morning nine to nine

but what i like the most,is the friends i made during my working time

Wisdom
Is what i seem to be getting to at a slow incline

My Youth
Is what seems to be in a fast decline,

and in six months it will be time to turn a very happy twenty nine.

The Irony of Bellary

2010-04-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

Went to Bellary,the heartland of the Karnataka Mining Mafia this week.

Found out that ,

Its got an international school, but no good govt schools
Its got Rolls Royce Phantom's by the dozen, but no good roads.
Its got big diesel gensets, but no reliable power connection.

We have just about begun building infra in the Bangalore's and Delhi's of India.
When will we ever reach the Bellary's of the world , if we ever do.

The Hall of Fame

2010-03-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

Every Oscar season , one gets up and starts to look up to what's the finest that the world has watched over the last year.This year too , the journey began for me.

Its taken me to invictus with an education waiting to provide me with one and The Hurt Locker kept safely in the Locker . And all this while i have been blind to the Blind Side.

But 2 sports movies in the oscar fray has got me to write what i have always wanted to write.

My list of the world's best sports movies.

As my pirated DVD walla at National market says, sir you are the only one who comes looking for sports movies.

So here it goes

Chariots of Fire. It is an insult to rank a movie like this . The soundtrack , the story , the expression all are so ingrained in any sport's afficiando's minds.

1.Invictus ....Mixed 3 of my favourite topics Sports, Politics and Africa in a cocktail mix that left me fairly heady after watching it.

2.Mystery Alaksa .....a mysterious little movie , really cute sports flick about a small town and its tryst with a big hockey match.

3.Hoosiers....Small town in American Midwest, that alone was good enough for me to watch.Gene Hackman as the coach of the basketball team , with a slight temper problem is tempting enough.

4. The flying scotsman - Graham Obree the superman on wheels and his epic journey on wheels is documented so well in this epic. This is perhaps the best superman movie ever made.

5.The World's Fastest Indian ....Small Town NewZealander , big time motor biking. Age , Engines, Passion, and Anthony hopkins make it a must watch.

6.Miracle - Kurt Russell as Coach Herb Brooks is a revelation.The movie like all sports movies is inspirational.

7.Jerry Maguire - Show me the money , show cases Tom Cruise's best ever acting efforts. Cuba Gooding junior was even better.

8.The greatest game ever played - I love the hero, but i loved the sidekick even more. With a caddy like that why would one ever need a soulmate , or a shrink or perhaps even a coach.

9.The Rookie - Its my lucky charm. If i watch the movie and hear the story of the patron saint of miracles, i start believing that i can do anything.After all wouldn't we all want to do great things even after we turn 30.

There are plenty of others from the raging bulls, to the bull durhams, from the Race against the sun to the Drivens of the world.

Sports movies can be romantic too like Wimbeldon. Murder mysteries too like Match point or thrillers like Swimfan. They can be in hindi too like Iqbal, Chak de India.Aamir believes strongly in the genre with Lagaan, JJWS and Awwal Number. They can create movie franchisees too like Mighty Ducks or the mother of all the Rocky Franchisee. They can be arty too like Offside the Iranian movie.

But mostly sports movies are thoose which leave you with a huge feeling of happiness.They leave you behind with a super self belief of being able to conquer the mountains of your life.

Unlike sports, the movies could actually be very predictable , yet highly enjoyable. I have always felt inspired after watching them.

You will always Remember the Titans. It is an Express tablet to feel good.And you could watch them on Any given sunday and any time of the day.They make for some very Cool Runnings.

TrendSpotting via Social Networking Sites

2009-10-28T20:11:00.000-07:00

Some pretty Interesting patterns

1. Going abroad is cool, really cool

God knows how many ppl hop on to the networking bandwagon when they are in edmonton or little rock or washington.

On last count there were 38 towns and cities called washington in Wikipedia in USA. Edmonton's can be found in USA,UK and the Australia.All this just makes the above mentioned trend even more popular.

2. You got kids. Pls let the world know.

Michael Jackson, was hauled up for holding prince from the balcony.

This emerging trend is becoming more observant as i move up the age ladder.

Guys and Gals or rather young mumma and puppa just make sure the kid is happy and not as much of a net freak as we all are.

3. Trekking/Jogging/Mountaineering/Hitchhiking

The Great Indian Outdoor Journey has begun. Perhaps brands like Timberland and The North Face should finally begin their trek to India...or atleast to the young Indian consumer on Facebook.

4. Gizmo's ......

You got mail. You show it. You got a Google Wave Account. Shout from the top of your voice.

5. Degrees Help

Its the new caste system of the world. I mean don't go far, see my own blogger profile for the same.

Journeys via the marquee degrees you obtain is definately far shallower than experiencing life.

Guess the best way somebody described it was a 5 minute dialogue by Boman Irani in the movie bluff master.

Some of theese even i am guilty of, but by and large i observed the same , rather than participating in the same.

Changeling

2009-10-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

I changed my blog template today. Changed it after 3.5 years. I edited my profile. Changed my place from Kolkata to B'lore after 3 years of being here. I had got too used to kolkata. I got even more used to blore.

Had a great run in both cities.Literally. Have written before about kolkata, so this post should be about bangalore.

What can i say about my life here.

Stayed alone for 15 month; then moved in with angad since the last 6 months;
Richards town and its park. The movies at Everest . Small town life in a big city.
Quizzes at KQA ; pubbing at Opus ; Monopoly at Kartik's ;Jogging at Ulsoor;Running at Cubbon;

The best possible entertainment.Long hours, first time with SAP, first time at sales,murli for company to drive to markets. Learnt stuff, cried cribbed, but generally enjoyed.Food for thought with Mikhail, evenings with goutom, sujata , rajshri, jishnu, .....with music and great food.Cultivated a baggage of even more beautiful memories than kolkata.

Had a brilliantly worked out life. As there is no such thing as a perputal motion machine, this great setup too will have to go.

There is enough anecdotal eveidence that this has to happen.Just don't know where ITC will put me next.

Hope it still would be bangalore.

Either ways,i will always cherish my time in Bangalore. Next time though would like to stay.

3rd time lucky - An ode to Mr Sekhar Chandra

2009-10-03T10:31:00.000-07:00

My first 3 bosses, in my rather short corporate carrier were from my own MBA Alma mater - xl. In fact only my current boss is not an xler.

The 3rd amongst those, but perhaps the one who left the most lasting impression on me, was Mr Sekhar Chandra. He retired a few days ago.

We gave him a good farewell. But he is the kind of guy who will celebrate it as his birthday. God given or acquired , on wouldn't know but he had an amazing sense of humour.

Here is one for the record. On the last day of his working life , he met another colleague while peeing at the toilet.He replied to goutom the colleague --- isiko Peer Pressure kehte hain.

If you gave a smart ass comment, you would get a smarter retort back.You sent him a cheeky mail, you would get a cheekier one from him back.He was my boss for a year.

He taught me some valuable lessons on tobacco industry,and taught me some rather invaluable lessons in life.

His corporate climb was far from spectacular, but his impact on me was spectacular.

I used to discuss golf with him, a sport i have no idea about. I gave him a pack of assorted confectionery some 13 months back. Going to his cabin, eating a candy and talking to him about anything was my favourite stess buster for a year.

In his last days he was busy writing anecdotes from around the ITC sales organization in the last 30-40 years. I was his part time editor, though i may have only edited a story or two. In fact he liked a blog entry of mine and used it too for his collection.

During the last phase of the project , during the last days of his active working life, we tried to find an appropriate title for his book. I was so stuck on Gen 42- the answer to the universal question in ITC , a double pun on 42 of hitchhikers guide to the galaxy and Gen 42 - an antiquated but an extremely useful report created for adequate stock planning in ITC. He showed me the folder which kept his collection of stories. Rather i peeked into the same, and saw that there was no presence of " Shit Happens" my blog entry which was to be made into a story.I was anyways going through some other strange notions on some other work and personal front related issues. I just added this , and i thought perhaps he never really put my story and just told me the same so that he could use my help.

15 minutes into my imagination, he casually showed all those stories to me , including my " Shit Happens" which was now renamed "Diary Notes". The story had been there all along.

He taught me perhaps the most important lesson on that day - the importance of trust.
Trust i guess is a weapon we need to rely on even when it gets broken. Its something we just need to trust.

That was Mr Sekhar Chandra. You can trust him to say a few lines on this passage. And trust me they will be memorable gems and not some random lines.

Scattegories for Scatterbrains

2009-09-10T08:13:00.000-07:00

Name Place Animal Thing

This is a game almost any body who was a kid once , which means everybody knows. it didn't take much , just two sheets of paper ,some pens and pencils and all the imagination in the world. this wonderful experimental apparatus, helped pass time in the classes in which teachers were absent, in the long car and train journeys , you took with friend s and cousins to marriages,picnics, family reunions, and when i got bored with fighting with my sister during vacations.( One side note --- Summer Vacations is the most important loss in the transition from a student to a corporate types)

Well now Parker brothers the guys who gave the world Monopoly , have come with Scattegories. Its as an often used copy in some old ITC product lines goes "same great taste, great new pack". But seriously its been packed well. Its got not 1, not 2, not 4, but a 26 sided dice. One face for each alphabet of the English Language.And its got many lists with things from Animal Names to Things in a zoo written on them. The objective is to max all items on the list with the alphabet which has appeared on the dice. If you think its easy try doing it in 1 min intervals for which they have given timers.

The result is great commotion, confusion and a lot of fun. Playing with more people means you realise how similar you and your friends think. I mean common, have can all 4 (lalith/pranay/angad and i ) think of only Herr as a title with H. Especially when you can have his or her majesty.Every time same answers come , you don't score.

Try playing this game. To me its an ultimate party game. If you are a quizzer or were in any way enamoured by lit fests , then this one's a game, for you.

Go on . Your time starts now....tick tick tick....

The Gut Runners " Quiz Story"

2008-09-08T00:34:00.000-07:00

Its been over 15 months since coming to Bangalore the new economy town from the old economy kolkata and some beautiful things have happened in my evolution as a collector of myriad facts.

I have been quizzing since my days in anand ,gujarat. Anand though was the answer to more quiz questions than the number of quizzes it hosted.

Schooling in Delhi , helped shape up a little in quizzes.My dad for some reason only read business books( guess 80' were the heydays of Biz Guru's) and so i read them.New more corporate facts than an avg kid. But also knew less fables and comics.

i attended DU for a month. Now that's where some quizzing did happen , but i decided an engg degree from NIT Jamshedpur was the best thing to acquire in life.

The acquisition though came at the cost of quizzing. Sitting in the steel heartland , limited my quiz cicrcuit to hosting them and a few occasional excursion trips to kgp and dhanbad.My college was truly an enigma. How an institute could survive on suck lack of govt attention and mismanagement is a tribute to the students leveraging the education to cling on to a better future.
Read some stuff, but there wasn't much to pick up from old second hand sakchi book shops. The quizzing peer group was small, dispersed and fighting its own demons.We just wanted to get back to our city sheltered environments in one piece (body and soul) with a degree and hopefully a job in hand.So quizzing was the last thing on my mind. Though we all chipped in with our bit through LDS( the lit soc)

In the end managed to accomplish all the three.Moved over from there to xl. Xl was literally the other side of the railway tracks for me.The journey from NIT to XL is huge in a very different way.Only deepak bhat ,mansij majumdar and i would possibly know that. The Delhi city brat , went back to the city civility from the engg college in the cow belt state. But the quizzing scene still did not change. a packed first year and desire to jog in 2nd year made sure that i did not make any quizzical journeys. This despite the fact that for the first time i had in my class more than a couple quizzers.

Then life took me to ITC and Vizag. One gorgeous year , of which i have no memories as my life was onto bigger problems. None were job linked as i had a ball of a time touring up country markets and visiting the Orissa hinterland . It was the return of the native. But quizzing , well i realised that Vizag Steel had a great quiz team when i met them in Cal.

And so after the year in Vizag moved to Cal.Went to a small sos quiz on a Saturday for the lack of a better entertainment option . Qualified , came 3rd and the bug came back to haunt me. Went to Tata Crucible 2006 , and qualified tops and came last. But the bug was on and i had lots of catching up to do.Quizzing introduced the antidote to all my problems. Friends and colleagues , with similar calibres in school were now eons ahead.I was rusty, but the bug was on. Kolkata quizzing truly improved me. By the time i left , i was a regular in finals, lots of podium finishes in biz quizzes(Clay Court in the language of general quizzers) and some in the general ones( the elusive grass). But i had improved.

And then i got transferred to Bangalore.I'll be honest , getting into a final was to me now an achievement akin to a podium finish.Tata Crucible 2007 , no qualification.

So i quit quizzing.For 1 month until a friend from cal came down. Together we went. Think we failed to qualify for the first 8 quizzes. But by the 8th we had 2 more partners and at least a full string quartet.

Sometime in the same season , the gut running ( check chariots of fire for what a gut runner is) amateur got a real lucky break. BT Acumen 2007. Won it. I had lost BT Acumen 2006 from cal on a buzzer.

The win helped keep the already waning passion alive.But then the grass court season restarted and the "just missed qualifying syndrome" started again. But the misses were becoming nearer. I think our quartet managed 3 qualifications.3 on some 14-15 quizzes.Liked it. I was improving. In 2008 i restarted going to opus , a pub quiz.Its beautiful in a manner so unique to itself. If Open quizzing is honourable , opus and pub quizzing is beautiful. That too helps. It keeps you in shape in a manner that you don't realise.

2008 has been better.Have managed some more qualifications. The near misses are still becoming nearer. I am still improving. The lack of adequate college reading has left me with major flaws in my technique. Opus is becoming more intense.But the beauty is still there.The desire is still on. Think my record for Grass Courts is now is at 2/6 , which is a major improvement on 3/15. And i am still counting only qualifications. Podium is hopefully a couple of years/seasons away.But the clay court season got off to a good start. Brand equity was a narrow miss and Tata Crucible was a win.

May the rub of the green continue.

How I saved My life and My Pasta

2008-01-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

Zealous marketers in their evangelical quest to provide people with green giant peas in summers and juicy pulpy mangoes in summers worked very hard. Napoleonic inventors invented tin canning. Rising costs forced the swedes into developing tetra packs. Small Indian stomachs and smaller wallets forced them into developing sachets. Food items underwent a hell lot of value additions.

Wheat was made into many nice shapes. Farfalle , Fusili , Elbow , spaghetti , you name a scrabble heavy word word and they had it. Then they were packed into nice yellow boxes and passed to people.

I too caught one.

Pasta. Cream. Cheese. Milk. Chicken. Mushrooms. Broccoli. Capsicum. Tomatoes. Mint. You name it and i put it in the melting pot of the calorie heavy diet ( isn't heavy diet an oxymoron)

Cooked it well the first two times.But it took ages. What the hell , i was on my way to become the metro sexual male, the man who knew his kitchen.

But then came the third time. Discovered that my pasta box had a small word of caution " Best before January 2008 ". It meant that i couldn't have it as my new year treat. And i realised this at 11 pm , December 31 , 2007.

In the event though we made it it time. The last of the pasta was devoured by 11. 45 pm. A comfortable victory. I had saved my life and my pasta too.

It was a bit like having my cake and eating it too.

Now i realised that while Bedouin's ate dates , Casanova's thrived on them , why salesmen are scared of them . Never ask a cig salesman what happens to them after 3 months.

Nothing absolutely Nothing.

From Kolkata to Bangalore : Etchings of a beautiful Life

2007-06-24T00:12:00.000-07:00

One great year at Kolkata.

Ate a whole lot of food, gained no weight, made friends, gained no enemies,created newer hobbies,lost interest in none of the old ones.

But it wasn't permanent. lasted all of 13 months.

2 hours later, life had to begin all over again.

The 2hours too were a lifetime. Some who chose to wait watched the red tailed fuselage of the Kingfisher from their terrace, some who chose not to wait watched the in flight entertainment with the author.

What a symbolic flight.

And so now , yet another wheel of time begins.

The 2BHK is now a One BHK , but being tastefully furnished by me.Boy it is so much fun.

The traffic noise in my apartment replaced by the railway tracks running behind my house.But the trains run at a far less frequency.

The Maid still comes in the Morning.Suits me fine.

The Long walk and the short Metro ride to the office is now an obstacle race over a construction site.

The BPCL In and Out is now a FoodWorld.

The Grass in Basket Ball courts is now the glass in Squash Courts and the small 5 a side football ground is now a huge barren cricket ground.

The front desk with the bored woman , who broke her leg in a basketball match is now a guard who speaks my native language.

There are interesting characters in the office , some becoming good friends , like the Only Jew in my company , or the passionate bass guitarist with 15 minutes of fame behind him.Have left behind the nervous Tamil lawyer , and the scrooge MC Duckish army of accountants back in Cal.

Food is still a passion.Chelo Kebabs have become sizzlers. The cardboard lunchboxes are now trips to the food court.

Life is getting recreated, but i still miss , the walks to the pantry for soups and cold drinks, cribbing about failed projects, crying over signatures and approvals, the Saturday all nighters at Siddhashree, the Sunday quiz huddles at pix,the Monday morning blues at Virginia House, the Tuesday walks to Mirza Ghalib street, the Wednesday treat of Shwarmas, the Thursday night at SPE, the Friday movies at Menoka and Priya.......

Another year later , i hope to have another set of memories like last year.Last year was good in more ways then one.

Hoping for the same , for everyone who enriched my life back there in Cal.

An Ode to Kolkata

2007-02-06T04:44:00.000-08:00

If Kolkata is lazy , why does my maid come at 6.00 in the morning?
If Kolkata is crowded, how come it takes me only 15 minutes to reach office?
If Kolkata is political , why have I worked on all bandhs
If Kolkata sleeps early, how have I spent so many nights out?

It was the capital of a nation when Delhi wasn't one .
It was a major port when mumbai was still a fishing wharf.
It was city when B'lore was still a village .

Kolkata the city of 1000 cuisines and not hamburgers.
Kolkata the city that plays sports not games.
Kolkata the city where people watch cinema not movies.

It takes time to appreciate finer things in life.
It sure took a long time to appreciate you.

My Jogging Track

2006-12-19T22:24:00.000-08:00

7 days, 6 in the morning, 5 kms long , 4 traffic lights , 3 War cannons , 2 lakes, 1 stadium.

The Battle of Bulge has never been more interesting.

of Synergy in numbers

2006-12-19T22:00:00.000-08:00

With the corus merger and the emminent Hutch takeover by whoever in both the cases , i began thinking again about synergies in the world.Thoose concepts in MACR and STRAT MAN classes.

But i thought about Synergies and strtergic fits about not just companies,divisions ,functions and brand teams but also about sports teams, people, families, and all of the above .

And then I thought about two common phrases and then i thought about something else.

If you and i thought Synergy was about 2+2 making 5 , we were told we were wrong.

Because Synergy was about 1+1 making 11 . A higher form of synergy i must say. Something which possibly a CSN thinks it shall get from Corus . But then think again .

Beacuse synergy i sincerly believe is about two 0's making a sucessful 8. Now this phrase which i ,me and myself thought about in one of thoose nights doing nothing .Two 0's making a sucessful 8 .And then I Think of the penniless Hewlett & Packard, Simon & Garfunkel , and more importantly my Mom & Dad .

I hope the same happens for Tata Steel in their quest for Corus , for the Indian Cricket team in their quest for a series win in South Africa, for Reliance Communication in their quest for Hutch and for all the people in the world.

The Glorious Loser

2006-11-20T06:45:00.000-08:00

I used to always come 4th in all school sports competition . Mom said that was a convenient result for me. Won't deny It.

But sometimes losing can be fun.

For instance the last week of my life. Just as eventful as all previuos weeks have been. Except that i lost 700 bucks bowling with my boss. Shish what was i doing playing with him at 5 bucks a point.

Then the card session with the entire brand team. All our creativity which tobacco intolerant times prevent us from presenting ,getting manifested in crazy variations in a stupid little 3 card game.thank god i cut my losses to only 170 Rs.

And then Argus open..arguably one of India's most time tested quizzes. Its 28 years old, and i only 24 going on 25.

Our team was the youngest . Avg age of the podium on the other side of 40. I was probably the 4th youngest finalist. 4 is my lucky number. We were also on table 4 . hey but we finished a spirited 5th. But The words just make it look nice. Were actually at a score half of the winner which is not so gr8.

But then i went into the quiz only wanting a podium finish.

Next week and Next year might be different. My Boss has already rechanllenged me for a game of bowling.

Airport

2006-10-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

In the quest for the ever elusive JP Silver ( Its been just a year working and I a'int a consultant with a client paying for my flybacks) i spend quite some of my time in airports. Actually the ever increasing lines at the check ins, and the ever more intricate security procedures also ensure that quite a bit of quality time is spent admiring the beautiful Kingfisher uniforms , munching thoose Cookies and solving sudokus in the complimentary news papers at airports.

But in doing so , have also collected some unusual trivias about our airports and aircrafts . Here's some of them

The Only Person who is named in the list of people exempt from Security Check in India He is a little known Exporter from Delhi called Mr Robert Vadra. The Non quizzical world would know him as Priyanka Gandhi's Better Half.
The Only Religious Leader Exempt from the security check in Indian Airports is the Dalai Lama. Does that mean the Pope will have to stand in a line like all of us :-)
All Spice Jet Air Crafts are named after well - Spices . I Have personaly seen a Coriander, Saffron and Turmeric.
Air Deccan, Times of India and Asian Paints , all share the same cartoonist . Actually Air Deccan and Times Actually use the same Common Man. Do they give Mr RK Laxman Royalty. Well Don't think an old man like him would like free tickets on Deccan considering how late they always are.
Nanaji Desmukh was the inspiration behind creation of Go Air which is run by Jeh Wadia.Last heard Nanaji Deshmukh was a staunch RSS guy and Wadia the great grandson of Md Ali Jinnah.

Its a funny world. The airports and the mushrooming airlines are true symbols of India's new found economic focus and drive towards privitisation . Isn't the Bangalore Airport owned by a company . So what if the company is a PSU called HAL.We are after all a very progressive nation.

2006-09-22T04:26:00.000-07:00

6 Lovely Things About my Work Place

1. Half Hearted Attempts to stay fit by people ,by Climbing down stairs but not climbing up.

2. The Misprogrammed Coffee Vending Machine , where u press the Elaichi Tea Button for Tomato Soup.

3. The Chai wala who has a new tale to tell every day he serves us tea in the morning.

4. The daily fight over some absent colleagues lunch when we start losing the battle of bulge at somewhere close to 5.oo pm in the office.

5. The beautiful panoramic view of the lush green maidan that can be seen from the pantry and the staircase lobby but not from the cubilcles.(Some Architect built my office isn't it)

6. The Corner of the corner most rooms where my friends and me pass notes, collate data, make presentations, concotate stratergies and play multipopword , pingusports amongst others.

The Little gems that make up my day.

Tanmay Prusty - A Gastronomique Journey

2006-09-14T06:06:00.000-07:00

1. Butter Naans , The 3 Musketeers and Mango Ice Creams , Sarvodya Ice Cream, Anand,Gujarat.

2. Roomali Rotis , Lahori Restraunt and Two in One Softies , Golden Bakery , Sarojini Ngr, Delhi.

3. Momos , Copper Chimney(the duplicate one) , and the scholarbadge wala All American Banana Split, Nirulas , Chanakya, Delhi.

4. Chicken Lapeta ,Fights for splitting bills and the long walk across adityapur more , Jamshedpur.

5. Chicken Sizzlers, BadService ,Vanilla Ice Creams with Cherry, Asian Inn and Walks down the Beldih Lake, Jamshedpur.

6. Chicken Stroganoff , the guitar strains, Oceanic Pavilion , Grand Bay and walking down RK Beach for a Baskin Robbins, Vizag.

7. The Kalighat Metro,Microwave Dinners and Refrigerated Mother Dairy Ice Creams, Kolkata

Of Rejuvenating the Blog , Berkeley & Life

2006-08-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

In life there is only one contstant , that being change itself. Every once in a while, you will realise , that while the world has moved on somethings haven't.
Sitting here in this 6 square feet of my workspace , we were told about an impending change in berkeley a brand as old as old gets, a brand with a rich history , richer legacy and a scary future. It needed overhaul, and thats what it is going through. My first real work in the corporate world . Not bad isn't it.
But as Berkeley goes through the paces in its quest to catch up, figured out that i myself needed some change in my life.
So while Berkeley changes to a smarter blue, i am getting rid of my own blues.
So while Berkeley gets the WD & HO Wills Crest , i get back to my reading books and long distance running.
So while Berkeley gets a new line , i get a new mantra in life , of living it like a drawing without an eraser.
And so i shall attend quizzes, talk more to my sister, play scarbble with my room mate, read more autobiographies and travelogues, fly aeroplanes every staurday in the lush green maidan, and blog more regularly offcourse.And i shall change the template of my blog more regularly.

Life needed the change.
Berkeley needed the change.
And the Blog too needed the change.

The Sunday Quiz Huddles

2006-07-31T23:39:00.000-07:00

There is something extremely magical and therapeutic about a huddle.
The Indian cricket team huddled up together and went all the way to the final in the last edition of the tournament. If you see Jerry Maguire, you will see a bunch of single women crowding together and bitching about their struggles. No point huddling up like that. Apparently i have been informed alcoholics anonymous sessions are like that too.
Every Sunday, in a run down art studio called pix, in an antiquated building aptly called "Hindustan mart" off Dover lane in Kolkata a bunch of nerds, some of whom actually dress pretty decently huddle up together asking each other mundane things about the world.
I have now become a part of this group for the last 2 weeks and intend to continue huddling up with them for my remaining nine months here in kolkata. Any session would probably begin with something as varied as exobiology and end with crypto zoology. For the uninitiated and the interested, the former is the study of extraterrestrial animals and the latter the study of mythical animals known to inhabit our mother earth.
What bugs sometimes, though is the heavy kolkatan emphasis, on questions and discussions on middle ages and Grecian history beyond the ages. But Middle Ages are better than a heavy dose of Middle Earth.
Yet that is what the charm is. Quizzers of different ages, shapes and sizes and sexes, make the rounds so much more interesting. Wherever I participated except here, this sport sure wasn't an equal opportunity employer. If I got to learn about the Seven Wonders of the World, somebody else got to to learn about the Fortune 500 companies. A fact for me is an interesting trivia for someone and vice versa too.
Love the amateurish feel to it, love the welcome they accord to each new member of the tribe, love the sheer range of questions they ask, and love the spirit with which the old pass the carefully built links of this tradition to the new.
Bangalore may now have better quizzers, Delhi may now have more money floating, and Mumbai more television quiz shows, but none would ever have a tradition as old as the Kolkatans.
It’s been a privilege to huddle with them.

My Rocking Week

2006-06-26T04:31:00.000-07:00

worked week ends on a brand input plan
went on monday to mumbai , courtsey a jet vimaan
cooped up the entire tuesday in office for a meeting that just ran and ran
began a party at 11 , finished at 2 , got up at 4 for the morning flying swan
reached b'lore , on wednesday and the same mumbai drill began
tried meeting ppl and friends , but that proposal went to the tin can
thursday back to kolkata and thot my busy life would now be put to a ban
but on friday b fast was in delhi and lunch enroute to jaipur in a mini van
saturday was for market at ajmer and some blessings from ajmer's most famous man,
sunday enroute to delhi was a major accident ,me and my taxi fried like a butter naan,
went for an x ray, as well as a ct scan,
luckily , am still as fit as jackie chan
met parents had lunch with them at delhi and dinner was back in kolkata man
and now my life is back to kolkata where it all began.

Personality Cults - Larger than Life

2006-06-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

A cult of personality is a political institution in which a country's leader uses mass media to create a larger-than-life public image through unquestioning flattery and praise.

A cult of personality differs from general hero worship in that it is specifically built around political leaders. However, the term cult of personality is often applied by analogy to refer to adulation of non-political leaders.

A bit like Big Brother always watching you in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

A personality cult is also characterized with many images and representations of a leader in public places, including statues, billboards, posters, signs, paintings, and vast murals.

Take the most contemproary example

"Dear Leader" and the"Great Leader" Kim Jong-il ,the north korean dictator also regularly hailed by the media as the "peerless leader" and "the great successor to the revolutionary cause.
The media also sometimes hails him by such lesser titles as "General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea", "Chairman of the DPRK National Defense Commission", and "Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army.

Wonder how the man writes his name in a passport , i.e if Kim Jong-il needs one.anyways , hardly visits anyplace.

And personality cults are no longer a political leader's prerogative only.

Finally It happened

2006-06-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

after 8 consecutive losses in football, with the best scoreline of 2-0 and the worst scoreline of 5-0 , i finally won something.

pity it wasn't the football field. it was on a small platform, in a small corporate quiz. so what if i came 3rd, the guys who came 1st and 2nd, well they are and were seasoned quizzers who used to be quizmasters while i was still in my shorts.

incidentally the only woman,( and she came 2nd ) was my visiting faculty teaching me sales and distribution. then while staring at her talk from the back benches , never thought she was the quizzing types.lesson learnt , never ever stereotype anyone.

and yes i need to give special thanks to my partner in crime, mr N Moza. for a man who last quizzed in his primary school, he didn't do too bad. He was damn good, and i say that not because he shares my dad's initials.He controlled my emotions, got me to concentrate and more importantly answered thoose very questions which i didn't know. thats what a team should be like.Mutally exclusive and collectively exhaustive.Am i not becoming good at the jargon :-).

So now what. i shall do as my boss says.which is what?
Stick to quizzing , chuck football.
Just that i love them both, and i hate losing in both.

The Bird's philsophy to life - Decision Making in Uncertain Environments

2006-05-31T21:05:00.000-07:00

Life for humans is a planned exercise.You plan for your education, your job, plot for your next one, arrange your marraige, contemplate your housing mortgage, think about your next car, analyse your kid's futures, and offcourse plan for your retirements.

Contrast this with a bird. One who get's up every morning, not knowing where the next meal will come from.They just know a couple of simple dictums , The Early Bird shall catch the worm and the fittest shall survive.Is stratergy about planning in a very certain context to reach or attain certainities or " Goal Posts" in life , or is stratergy about decison making in an extremely uncertain context to paint your future in a canvas without knowing its final outcome.

The sufi saints in kashmir had a very unique exercise that they performed every day to remind them about the latter and the uncertainity of future. They would spend some time in a coffin every day . What a rude way to remind u about a human's greatest uncertainity which no planning can remove or delay.Try reading 'veronika goes to die' a story about a woman who has failed suicide attempt and as a consequence has a month more to live.

Ben Affleck in Paycheck said , You take away people's future if you tell them their futures.

The human civilisation has throughout its evolution tried to bring more predictability in life , off course at the cost of uncertainity.No wonder many movies and books predict doomsday along with the creation of a machine that predicts future.

Taking the same argument to organisations, haven't the pressures of Stock Exchanges and the presure to live upto market expectations quarter on quarter made organisations more process oriented. Predictability attracts a premium and uncertainity a discount.Doesn't that make an organisation less risk averse.

Works got to become more documented. Mavericks don't work. Doesn't process orientation and need for certainity hamper creativity.

Therfore no wonder innovation today generally takes place at fringes. The SONY of walkman fame, missed the i-pod boat. There network walkman is strictly passe. Did it become too large to have an aversion to uncertainity.Would apple continue its innovative streak with an increase in its bottom and top line.

Have humans too in their quest for acheiving all goal posts become the same. Therfore aren't the most innovative and risk taking people generally thoose forced onto one corner.

I would think it would be good to take a leaf out of the bird's book and try digesting slightly greater unpredicatbility. Think I would try it by first applying the same principle to myself.Practise be4 u preach :-)

The Coral called life

2006-05-08T01:18:00.000-07:00

its a funny world , damn funny world.
Yesterday one of my friends asks me for advice, when , i am stuck in a log jam i have no idea of.
Day before yesterday i talk to a friend who is stressed and hates his job , because of his extreme work loads, and i am stressed and hate mine , becoz i ain't got work.
People say , young tyros like us have huge expectations from life. My sis asks me for advice on coping up with her romance , when i sure couldn't manage any.
I, Tanmay Prusty in a city of over 10 mn ppl am lonely. I tanmay Prusty with over 170 friends in orkut , don't have any body to talk too.
This friday was spent walking back home, in an effort to get tired and therfore immediately go to sleep.The saturday was worse.Both my flatmates working, and i twiddling my thumb.The sunday though was awesome, when atleast one of them decided, that he had worked enough for the week.

Now i understand, what call centre workers go through, what people in the bench go through, what being in between projects is all about. The funny thing is it took an Old economy company to teach me that.

So i get confused. I put a spirited attempt to get going with my life. I sure tried hard , but fell flat on my face, in fact fell into a muddy pit which has discolured my face. What the heck i tried.

I was told i was immaturish, kiddish and in search of a better toy, because i had been given a bad one.and i was told i am wrong to call it a bad toy.

Anyways , i have a year , where i can either keep crying or keep working. Lets hope that i am self motivated enough to do the same.
It never really has been one of my strenghts. I remember the only engg exam that i flunked was the one where i had the most holidays. I remember the exam that i screwed up in 10th boards was the one which had a week off.

If i were to bet money on my self, i wouldn't. For the simple fact that my track record belies it.But then people cahnge.

I today compromised, rather to put it more modestly rationalised my expectations. This is the first in the series of decisions i shall be making in life, to respect the mediocricity of life.

This after all is a coral called life.

The Orkut Brand Value measure

2006-04-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

The simplest technique

Log on to orkut and find out the community for a brand... the more the brand members the better.....the more cult ur brand is

Some high scorers

Cocólatras - Coca Cola 158,038 members

Ferrari Passion 58,390 members

Marlboro Cigarettes 21,182 members Community for Marlboro smokers!

Pepsi Drinkers 6,143 members

Apple 19,241 members

Harley Davidson 6,812 members and Harley Davidson - Brasil 19,783 members

Some indian ones

WILLS NAVY CUT 314 members

Old Monk Rum 212 members

Gold Flake 114 members

PS : This Orkut is by no means a scientific sample, being heavily skewed towards the really job less ppl in office, with internet and time at their disposal and is thus not truwlly represntative of the world at large. The numbers though are a good surrogate for the iconic status that sme brands enjoy.

and btw there is a community on a tribe called

Brand Managers 759 members
(The large numbers are fairly indicative of the amount hardwork they indulge in and the amount of freee time they have at their disposal.)

The Kolkata house hunt

2006-04-16T23:40:00.000-07:00

On any given weekend when the rest of the world parties, me and my friends ended a week long hunt for a flat to stay in kolkata for the second year of my corporate life. And what a hunt it was.

I wanted a 3bhk furnished acco (for there were going to be 3 cubicle bound lotus notes warriors -me and my 2frnds). I was shown lots of 3 bhk unfurnished acco and 2bhk furnished acco.And also one 4bhk furnished acco. And i thought marketing was about fulfiling needs and wants of the customer.The rates and his brokerage varied. Becoz theese brokers lie so much , there was no consitency in their replies. After they follow a unique pricing theory where the same property shown to the same person by two different brokers could be different.IF u wear a nice shirt and go (which i did) the rent was 14k. The nxt day (i was dressed in casuals) the same acco was shown to me for 12 k. So much for dressing down.

And the best part was ..asking the broker in the middle of the deal what his comission was. Pat came the reply 2 months. We retorted that he had orignally said 1 month (which was a bluff). In less than 1 minute he scaled down to 1 month. Atleast they should maintain a book of what version of the story they have said to which customer.

Despite all this , we have locked on to a house.A nice 2bhk for 3 ppl :-( with no balconies:-(( but airconditioned :-) and some quite decent furnishings :-)).

Hey but the agreement is not yet signed, and we still haven't moved. Who knows what can happen in the property market in like 5 days.

Business GURU Series: WALL STREET

2006-04-05T04:46:00.000-07:00

The Dictum of Capitalism

Gordon Gekko("The point is, ladies and gentleman, is that greed - for lack of a better word - is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms - greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge - has marked the upward surge of mankind. And Greed - you mark my words - will not only save Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.")

Business Guru Series : Jerry Maguire

2006-04-05T04:38:00.000-07:00

The Loudest MKTG pitch ever

Jerry Maguire: "What can I do for YOU, Rod? "
Rod Tidwell: "It's a very personal, very important thing. Hell, it's a family motto. Now are you ready? Just checking to make sure you're ready (Rod turns his boom box real low) here it is -- show me the money. (He now blasts the boom box at full level) OHHH!!!! SHOW! ME! THE! MONEY! Doesn't it make you feel good just to say that, Jerry? Say it with me one time brother! "
Maguire: "Show you the money. "
Tidwell: "Oh, come on, you can do better than that! I want you to say it brother with meaning! Hey, I got Bob Sugar on the other line I better hear you say it! "
Maguire: "Yeah, yeah - no, show you the money! "
Tidwell: "AH! Not show YOU! Show ME the money! "
Maguire: "Show me the money! "
Tidwell: "Yeah, that's it brother but you got to yell that shit! "
Maguire: "Show me the money! "
Tidwell: "Louder! "
Maguire: "SHOW ME THE MONEY!"

2. How 2 get ur girl back

Jerry: "I love you. You... complete me."
Dorothy: "Shut up. Just shut up. You had me at 'hello'."

3. Dicky Fox's business nuggets

Dicky Fox: "The key to this business is personal relationships."

Dicky Fox: "If this [points to heart] is empty, this [points to head] doesn't matter."

Dicky Fox: "Hey... I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I have failed as much as I have succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success."

Aamir Khan's Regret

2006-01-13T01:31:00.000-08:00

In 30 seconds some of my fellow brethren showed me exactly how we had beaten aamir khan to an insignificant dogtag which was going to be attached to us for the rest of our lives. Pity aamir did not listen to his mother.

An advert by titan, it shows poor little aamir lamenting over his failure to listen to his mother and get that stupid degree called AM BE AA . Why ? Because he is unable to wear the wall street collection by Titan to the office.

Well this had to happen. My first salary went into buying a pair of TiTan EdGe's for my parents. Ditto for my friend & colleague & fellow dogtag holder Nishant . Staying in Vizag didn'tleave us with too many gifting options :-(

It must have taken half a dozen MBA's ( They mota moti(which is Hindi for Net Net) equal one smart Kid)to realise how many watches AM BE AA 's can buy.

Well since its a good ad and because i like aamir i shall buy the wall street collection watches from TiTaN***.That's the closest a FMCG guy like me is gonna come to the bulls and bears of the wall street.

***
The watches shall be bought only if Shahab "TiTaN" Siddiqi will get me a discount.

Back to the floor : Adi Godrej works the Market

2005-12-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

More television channels have created greater content demands which have lead to glamourisation of many institutions and people. Imagine being a celebrity becoz u managed to clear a test. Imagine corporate big wigs like mukesh ambani's, vijay mallaya, km birla getting mobbed for auto graphs. Well still glamourising them is better than glamourising the p3p whose only claim to fame is that well they all want to be famous for their partying.

But one of the better fruits of this quest for glamorising corporate honchos is a television serial called " BACK TO THE FLOOR " on BBC world

Saw it for the first time today, and boy wasn't it fun to see the CMD of Godrej Soaps Mr Adi godrej work the market for the day just like we blokes do. He went around vikhroli in a maruti (quite a fall from his merc's and roll's i must say).
I went on a hero cycle in upcountry orissa and AP.(its another story that the cycle was for 4 days...and it now is a sturdy indica).

But i what i liked was the fact that he was asking the same questions that i would ask retailers.

Which means maybe i am as smart as he is or perhaps he is as dumb as i am. I though would tend to believe it is the former.

Pats on the back apart , this program sure was good .

It just reiterates one of the more important business lessons i learnt from the ITC distributor at Balasore , Orissa ( Shyam Babu) " Business is best understood at the top of the chain or at the bottom of the chain. The rest are just complex message switching devices". While the top makes the decision only the man on the field will determine its impact . The rest of the ppl are just control mechanisms.

I hope that i would make meaningful interpretation of my exposure to the retailers and not end up becoming one such complex message switching device.

Of my life and milestones and millstones

2005-11-29T02:35:00.000-08:00

My birth a milestone
my upbringing a millstone

shifting to Delhi a milestone
getting up rooted from anand a millstone

Reading business autobiographies as a 12 yr old a milestone
Never learning how to hold the cricket bat correctly a millstone

Celebrating my school's birthday a milestone
landing up in shorts for the party (boy that was embarrassing) a millstone

Becoming the youngest member of "Veni vidi Vici" my school quiz club a milestone
Beating sid nair my close pal for that a millstone

Becoming the felicity house vice captain in Std xi a milestone
Never becoming the teacher on the teacher's day in std xii a millstone

Joining engg on an NRI seat a millstone
Becoming the secretary of the lit club in undergrad and passing with distinction a milestone

Finding a lovely soul mate a milestone
Losing her to Uncle Sam and marriage a millstone

Being 'Stuck in the middle'&' Top of the normal curve ' in post grad a millstone
Making the best friends of my life in GH 3 a milestone

Becoming a cycle hawker salesman in orissa a milestone
Seeing the abject poverty of my state a millstone

They say a man who has not failed has not tried anything in life.
What the heck shall take all the millstones for reaching the milestones.

Orissa's Tibetian Connection

2005-11-18T03:49:00.000-08:00

After the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, Tenzin Gyatso fled to India, where he was active in establishing the government of Tibet in exile.

In order to rehabilitate and look after Socio-economic Welfare of Tibetan Refugees in exile and with an aim to bring all Tibetan refugees in communities large enough to preserve their language, tradition, culture, and national identity and to secure food, shelter, medical care, education and means of livelihood so as to achieve self-sufficiency the dalai lama with the help of Govts of India, Nepal and Bhutan created settlements for all the Tibetan refugees in India , Nepal and Bhutan.

In the mid 1960s, the Indian Government offered several areas of land throughout India where Tibetan refugees could settle together and protect their distinct culture and way of life. The state of Karnataka in the South formed the largest concentration of Tibetan refugees worldwide, today totalling around fifty thousand.

There are 120,120 Tibetan refugees living in India, Nepal and Bhutan.There are 53 Settlements: 35 India 11 Nepal 7 Bhutan.

One of the 35 indian settlements is in orissa.

The Phuntsokling Tibetan Settlement, Chandragiri, Orissa was conceived in 1963 with an initial Population of 2479 and has grown to a present population 3360on a Total allotment of 1859 acres

This settlement is situated at a distance of 80- kms. from the west of Berhampur at a height of 3200ft. above sea level. The cooperative runs handicraft centre, dairy and a poultry farm, a mechanical workshop, an elders Home, and horticulture. It also has a dispensary, a Tibetan medical centre, creche, school and a monastery.

Which probably explains why momos in berhampore are better than momos in bhubaneshwar and vizag and why i encountered so many tibetians in berhampore while peddling fmcg products in up country orissa as a part of my training.

Now when i go back to the same place as an Area Manager( which would mean a car to travel) i shall visit this tibetian monastery in orissa.A population of 3300 also means many more customers which are always good.

So now lets check if we have peneterated this tibetian settlement.

Trivial Pursuit

2005-11-09T22:08:00.000-08:00

One smart short cut way to become a better history quizzer is to read the lyrics of the song 'we didn't start the fire ' by billy joel.

We Didn't Start the Fire is a song by Billy Joel that lists 120 well-known events, people, things, and places from his lifetime, from 1949 to 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front. Joel explained that he wrote this song due to his interest in history. He commented that he would have wanted to be a history teacher had he not become a rock and roll singer. (this intro is copied from wikipedia).

check out theese two links...

http://home.uchicago.edu/~yli5/Flash/Fire.html

http://www.teacheroz.com/fire.htm

happy reading

India's Sam Walton

2005-11-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

A few days back i read an interesting post at http://alternativeperspective.blogspot.com/.

The post talked about the two India's , one two which we the yuppies who blog and jog belong and the other india which supports our lifestyle costs.Yup the ball boys at the tennis courts, the maid servants and bais who cook our meals, the neighbourhood dhobi who irons your clothes. This is the india we would not like too much to think about.

I had commented then about how this invisible india also constituted the bulk of the sales force of all the FMCG majors operating in India. Theese invisible souls despite being the provider of the vital last mile advantage had still not been able to get enough bargaining power to qualify as employees in either the fmcg companies roll's or their distributor roll's.

And how i was happy that finally the distributors were having difficulty in getting people to do the same work and were being forced to increase their wages.

A few days later Mr Kishore Biyani (of pantaloon and big bazaar fame) talked about the India 1 and India 2 on an interview on CNBC. His hunch was that the next big boom in retailing was to come from the vast untapped potential of India 2.

I hope that the indian business community are able to get innovative business models running tapping this long forgotten people , who also belong to india.But what is really interesting is the conceptual clarity with which he could explain his hunch. And our desi sam walton was equally comfortable discusiing branding, retail analytics and all the buzz words consults can come up with.And to think that he started by selling cut pieces of clothes.

His intw and his logical explanation of his hunches just devlops my hunch that big bazaar might conquer the retal sweepstakes game. Perhaps now would be the rt time to buy into Pantaloon.

5 things to do in b'lore

2005-11-05T06:09:00.000-08:00

Big cities generally suck. Unless you discover smaller things in them. After a few disappointing weeks , when bangalore simply failed to live up to its hyped up image, doing theese 5 things in b'lore sure made one weekend easier.

1. Brunch Buffet at LakeView Milk Bar, MG rd
2. Browsing and buying books @ Blossom's
3. A visit to Lal Bagh to view the indian version of crystal palace
4. Dinner at Mavalli Tiffin Rooms ......and to think that India's largest RTE company started from this quaint food joint
5. Death by Choclate at Corner House

Maybe , the coming few weeks will throw upa few more interesting things.

P.S. : The Salesman has temporarily settled down for a few weeks as an in-house consult.

The Mughals of Nawakille ( Squash Champions of the world)

2005-10-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

If one were to call a enclosed box of not more than 60 sq metres with vague lines drawn across them a kingdom , and the squash racquets the swords to win over the kingdom then surely the khans would be the kingdom's knights in shining armour.

The dynasty of champions originated from a little village, Nawakille, near Peshawar. Hashim, Azam, Roshan, Moibullah (Senior), Jahangir and yes, the last Emperor, Jansher.

The Mughals of Nawakille have shared between themselves lots of precious silver.Since 1950, they have won 29 British Opens. When the World Open was initiated in 1975, they were quick to engrave their name on this premier event. Jahangir won six, Jansher a record eight.

Yesterday was my first day trying to comprehend the mystery of this above mentioned kingdom with its vague lines and claustrophobic court.I though am a mere peasant writing this ode to the emperors who once ruled this place.

The World is Flat

2005-10-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Q.
When do you start beliving in a book which talks about the creation of a level playing field courtesy the creation of internet, that tells you have the world has become flat because of increased globalisation.

A.
When u buy a pirated copy of the same book(The World is Flat) from a push cart in blore for rs 150 instead of a fancy hard copy of rs 750 in a barnes and nobles or gangarams or teksons depending on where u are.don't think even amazon could offer me such a deal. Never before have learning about prespectives become so democratized. come to think of it , in terms of acessability this book is equidistant from an engg student or a harried business executive.

However what would have given me a greater kick would have been to find a free soft copy of the same book on the internet ;-).
The world is indeed flat MR Friedman.

Heritage Jogging Routes

2005-10-07T12:26:00.000-07:00

The morning of 3rd October was special , because i managed to get up early ;-) . I also manged to jog on a very special route, right along the victoria memorials across the maidan and then along virginia house back to park hotel where i was staying. Except for the fact that it had rained the previous night , everything about the route was very special.

Just like heritage walks are planned maybe a few enthu runners from across India can document and probably put up the best jogging routes of their cities on the net.I am sure frequent flyers with bulging bellies like me would find this immensely useful.

A few good jogging routes that i have been to are as follows

1. Along RK beach vizag (it also passes across a SUBMARINE museum.
2. The rajpath from india gate to the rashtrapati bhavan between the north and south block. The slope makes it tough 4 a run too.
3.The kolkata maidan -victoria memorial strech.

2005-09-29T12:05:00.000-07:00

Branding the COW

How salesmen built dreams .

2005-09-25T10:57:00.000-07:00

Pre 1947 ITC, then the imperial tobacco company operated in the whole Indian Subcontinent. Even today Pakistan has a BAT subsidary. Infact i think Players (John players) is probably a cigarette brand there.

When the wise men of the indian subcontinent and the not so wise men of UK split India up, many were uprotted. They included the rich and the poor, the hindus and muslims.Some of theese unfortunate souls were also ITC distributors.They were also forced to leave behind their considerable business interests, stocks, and properties behind.

But post partition, this company did something different. There were advertisments put up in both pakistan and india inviting ITC distributors who had lost their businesses to meet up at a common place.A list of distributors vacant in both India and Pakistan was drawn. This list was shown in both pakistan and india.The distributors were many , areas only few.However the people were so overwhelmed by the company's benovelent response, that all arguments were sealed and the territories amicably carved. Their previous trading balances with the company were also transferred to their newer setups in India. Not only that, the company provided initial support in the form of free stocks to get theese people back on their feet.

This incredible gesture was done both in Pakistan and India. While partition no doubt was bad, their association with a company gave theese people chance to rebuild their dreams.

In the movie A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN maddona plays the role of a poor cabaret dancer who is good at baseball. Because of world war 2 , a female baseball league is promoted. But because of issues the league intially doesnot generate enough surpluses.On hearing reports of closing down of the league, She exhorts the marketing manager to sell the league better as for her the league was a ticket to better life.Marketing thus in its own way has a contribution to make towards life.Marketing and its societal defination after all talks about the promise of a better standard of living.

It is this aspect of capitalism which is so amazing. It gives people the ability to dream.Economic activity generation helps in it own way.

Free Riding

2005-09-16T12:22:00.000-07:00

i am a customer . a customer is king. so i visit a shop, to be precise a book shop. i check out a magazine. to be precise i read the entire magazine standing in the book shop.then i open another magazine. and i read the entire magazine. then i walk out.

right. i don't know. wrong. even that i don't know.although i enjoyed it, i am sure the shop attendant and the owner must have cursed me. I was mean , very mean today. Maybe i'll buy a magazine from there tommorrow.

Encountering Mundanity

2005-09-14T01:56:00.000-07:00

I started writing blogs as a meaningful diversion.After all my life meant more. But then little did i know ...that one could run out of things to write. Writer's block to a poor amateur who is just a couple of posts old.

Lessons learnt, that writing is a tough job and that every job has enough mundanity built up in it.

You could be doing your job every day and hate it. You could be getting up every morning to run , do aerobics the jane fonda way or yoga the age old way and be loving it. So u really don't hate your job because u are doing it every day.You don't hate things for its mundanity. If u are then u are kidding yourself.

Btw...am rt now in vijaywada(Ten lakh humans here), and i also met another salesman freind of mine who is busy peddling watches(nice expensive ones). So this tour has been better than last one in the civilised way. But then, this one has lesser stories to tell.Plan to visit a museum here, to check if there is any good post waiting over there.

Both were Kewl in their own queer ways.Plus i have a week long training program @puri to look fwd to.

Kar lo duniya muthi main

2005-09-12T20:19:00.000-07:00

This is in honour of the petrol pump attendant from aden who has changed the way indians communicate. Though I hated their ads, though i hated their fights, though i hated their guts , though i hate it when my post paid bills come, though i it took me two data cables and nearly 1 man day to jig my phone to surf the net, i bought their connection and better still some of their shares.

Now i am able to surf and blog my way to glory from most places(the salesman also visits places where Reliance is still absent) . Dhirubai and a few greedy men have made living in Indian country side slightly more easier.

Incidentally the man who started it (Sam Pitroda) was born to a poor gujarati carpenter family in Titlagarh, western orissa. I visited the place in my august touring cycle.

Gordon Gekko was right. Greed is good. It is the the only institution that built corporate america.

May India encounter a few more men like theese to overhaul our roads, power and water problems.

Till then let me surf and may the world be an oyster in my palm.

Shit Happens

2005-08-24T00:33:00.000-07:00

Berhampore was only a base for travelling. The tour cycle that followed was the real thing. Extremely fascinating and very tiring , i found myself cursing the entire world many a times.

This was an orissa i a semi native had no clue about.

There were trips to aska ( the Cm visits theese ppl who made him a mla once a year).The people here though make great mushrooms and buy lots of our matchsticks.(prob amongst the largest matchstick distributor in india 4 itc).

Then there was parlakhemundi sitting right at the border between andhra pradesh and orissa. Imagine the border passing through some fields and even some houses. I wonder if the radcliffe line also split many such drawing rooms from bedrooms.

Then came the mother of all trips . First took a bus to phulbani. This place is a quasi hill station in orissa. I off course just got to see thoose magnificient valleys through the not so safe surroundings of my jittery bus. From phulbani , though i was to visit Bhowani Patna, Kalahandi. But fate had other things in store.

Buses in orissa travel on state highways. That thoose state highways are narrower than the service lanes of south delhi colonies is nobody's concern at all. There was truck which had only 3 wheels . And another overloaded truck had got the nuts , bolts and discs of its back wheels torn. The result was a complete halt in movement acroos the highway , right in the middle of a jungle.

The night was ok, spent in the safety of the bus. But come morning, a tired body and a tormented soul could take no more.I went in search of a nice bush near a stream , to create more manure for the dense forest.I heard wierd noises. But Shit happens.

After some 16 hours in the bus for a journey of only 140 kms i reached bhowani patna. 4 hours later it was time to move on.

The trip to khariar road was nice . Finally figured out why bolero's out sell sumo's as taxis in rugged terrains. This place is at the junction of chattisgarh and orissa. All panwaala's talk in hindi and ad boards are written in devnagiri script. Incidentally this orissa outpost has a gujarati MLA. And i also spent an hour in a local mela out there. While working out a deal to stock sunfeast biscuits in a stall i tried my hand at shooting and managed to hitch a ride on the giant ferris wheel.

20 outlets and this small diversion in the mela later it was time to catch a train to vizinagram in andhra pradesh. From there i was to go back to berhampore. Poor Roads , poorer railways and poorly conceievd borders meant i had now visted andhra thrice and Mp once , while i was only touring south orissa.

For the last two days i have now been in berhampore. Today i push off to Sunabeda/Jeypore/Koraput and Nowrangpur.

I pray that the highways are not clogged agin.

How cinema rescued me

2005-08-24T00:08:00.000-07:00

On the 7th of august , thoose who we shouldn't talk about banished me to berhampore, orissa to continue the rest of my mangement training. Berhampore(rd bereham pur) and my training there left me with too little time and yet lots of boredom. I had no klue what to do xcept offcourse work.

But then sudenly while working markets i came across this ugly big building with a rather nice billboard. Theatres, and berhampore had quite a few of them.

3 days 3 movies all for a petty sum of 45 rs. Imagine seeing rising-mangal pandey on the first day friday for 15 rs. I saw the movie be4 my friends in metros and be4 my family in delhi.(viruddh and sehar complete the trioka. And today Fantastic Four shall be the 4th movie i shall watch)

Thank u cinema and all the greedy people of the world who distributed the movie in so many screens.It sure made the stay at berhampore a trifle little lighter.

2nd AC Networking - A 3D concept

2005-07-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

One of the better gifts of our colonial past would be a great ,vast , monlithic govt department ,also the world's largest employer of people in terms of sheer number is the INDIAN RAILWAYS.The last metric though would be a measure of its supreme inefficency and the legacy of railway ministers most of whom were from bihar.(yeah even before LP Yaday)

Not so long ago before the aviation sector was buzzing and when the skies were not so open ,most middle class would travel by second ac. It proved so popular that govt introduced a 3rd Ac too.Now that must have been one smart railway minister.Anyways u also did a lot of train journeys if u were a student (which i was not so long ago) and if u are in a sales and marketing job which lots of upcountry travel (which i am in now).

One of the best things about train journeys is the amazing assortment of people u come across.Maybe i am biased or plain lucky but here is a representative sample of people i have come across in my train journeys.

Anand Moses . ex I banking ex Goldman Sachs.....
Met him from Vizag to Bhubaneshwar

i remember him because he talked about the need for vision and mission for India. frankly i had enough global vision and mission statemnets in my strat mgmt and mktg classes so i asked him about Usa's vision and mission.Prompt came the reply - Protecting Democracy Globally.

Very Valid point i had to acknowledge.

Naveed Ahmed. MBA XLRI..Pucca Indian Yuppie.
Met him enroute new delhi to tatanagar

I remember him most becoz the very next year i joined xlri and met him in a alumni dinner and talked about this wonderful train journey.

Mr Mexican pilot.
Met him enroute Puri to Kharagpur.
He kept comparing Puri to Acuapulco. I never knew Orissa was so good.

Mr 23 year old Foot ball loving Tibetian Monk.
met him enroute delhi to jammu tawi.
I kept talking about how he resisted temptations. Like all monks he maintained a stoic silence.

Somehow u always break ice much more easily with people on trains. Perhaps its the Distance of the journeys which adds so many more Dimensions to the psuedo intellectual Discussions between people. Airlines have yet not been able to do that.Indian Railways has always triggered the drawing room activist modes of my co passengers.

The Return of the Native

2005-07-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

An interesting three bit tale unfolds over here involving a grandson, father and grandfather.

A long time ago , my great grandfather left his village in Dhenkanal, Orissa. The districts claim to fame is that every house is related to a politician.After all it has produced more Cm's then all other districts of Orissa put to gether.

My grand father went to Scotland to study. A zoologist i think his 15 minutes of fame was having a tissue named after him. Only to come back to Orissa.

My father for the first twenty years of his life built his corporate life in all places ( Delhi, Mumbai, Lagos....)only to now end up touring orissa extensively.15 days in a month is bad.

I thus naturally never stayed here. And like all other children born post industrial revolution studied to make myself useful to some pretty useless corporations of the world.Only to come and begin peddling th FMCG (read petty products) in....Orissa of course.

Well thankfully atleast i speak the language. It helps. i especially love surprising marwari shopkeepers with my supreme delhi wala hindi and then talking to Oriya shopkeepers with Fluent Oriya.

But then i am only here for training. Only time shall say how Orissa unfolds in my life.

The Pondi CHERRY tree

2005-06-26T04:38:00.000-07:00

I began my worklife yesterday peddling FMCG in VIZAG branch,Andhra Pradesh. This is perhaps the longest ITC territory. Its responsibility stretches from West Bengal border all the way across coastal Andhra and Orissa to the borders of Tamil Nadu. Yet it includes Pondicherry.
Now how would that be? Have ITC got there geography lessons wrong.

No. They have it right.This is because pondicherry has four parts , Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam and Pondicherry .

Pondicherry and Karaikal are situated on the East Coasts in Tamil Nadu, Yanam on the East Coast in Andra Pradesh and Mahe on the West Coast in Kerala.

Yanam was once a French colony and is presently a part of the Union Territory of Pondicherry. The French presence is seen in the stained glass work of the local church dating back to 1769 and at the French cemetery. Yanam has its share of fascinating stories about French ghosts haunting the French colony. Oh and the traffic policemen wear a bright red french cap .

India and its colonial history is exceptionally fascinating, from the british , to the portugese and offcourse the long forgotten french and dutch.

At the time of India's independence in 1947, Portuguese India included a number of enclaves on India's western coast, including Goa proper, as well as the coastal enclaves of Daman and Diu, and the enclaves of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which lie inland from Daman.

37 km away from Calcutta is Chandernagore , once a French colony. It is a beautifully laid out town on the bank of the river Hooghly with a lovely promenade that is ideal for strolls. The churches, the convent and the residence of the French Administrator along the strand are interesting buildings left by the French.

Chinsurah was a Dutch settlement from 1656 to 1825. It was later exchanged by the Dutch for the British-held Indonesian island of Sumatra in 1825.

Fedricnagar A.K.A Serampur was the seat of missionary activity from 1793 to 1834. It holds an important place in Bengal’s history. It was a Danish settlement till East India Company took over in 1845. The house of the Danish Governor, the Roman Catholic Church and St Olaf Church still stands here.

The company that i work for too and the industury that we represent too would not have existed had it not been for the colonialism and imperialistic ambitions of Europeans. For it was the portugese who discovered tobacco in south america and then transplanted it into Europe. BAT the orignal promoters stand for British American Tobacco.By the way even tea and potatoes and tomatoes came the same way all the way from south america.

The roots of Globalisation thus are much much deeper than the waves of economic liberalisation of 1990's. There are multinationals operating in india since probably close to a century.

The marxists smoke wills cigarattes, drink horlicks , lipton tea and nescafe in their coffee houses and quote marx a german who died in london and whoose ideas were followed in russia and china . Oh and generally i have heard our elite marxist leaders only quote in English.

Why then i wonder should one uproot a tree so old. Shouldn't we now be learning how to live under this tree.

OXY MORONS

2005-06-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

staying in a 7 star hotel (induction) for free, paying exhorbiant laundry bills

getting transferred to a big city(Vizag) with large amounts of rural touring(Bheemavaram, arakku.....)

Am a post grad(MBA) in a job(Sales) which my senior says is low on intellectual input

Am in a large company which seems to care for people

So far a HAPPY life

www.drmunnabhai.com

2005-05-29T22:10:00.000-07:00

Zee business carried an interesting story today. Some innovative people have started a company called drmunnabhai.com .While vidhu vinod chopra might be crying on copyright grounds, i think all people are generally kicked with this company and their unique concepts.

They make use of revenue yield management concepts to create affordable medical solutions for the junta.

The acedemic definition of Revenue Management states that RM is comprised of "systems & procedures to maximize results from the sale of a product or service in more or less fixed supply whose revenue producing ability diminishes with time."

Its a bit like a restaurant has 24 hrs but people only eat during lunch and dinner times. So you introduce happy hours to create demand in the offpeak hours (read in between dinner and lunch) to utilise the restaurant when its completely free.

Airline earlier would have flat ticket rates .That would maximise average revenue per seat w/o necessarily maximising the revenue obtained per trip. So many auction schemes and multiple ticketing plans were introduced.

This concept is so powerful that an alumni of Xl who also heads the operations department at IIM A even lectured us for an hour and halfon it. Though i must confess its extreme qunatitative orientation left me thoda sa confused.After all my only D Grade was in operations research :-(

Now Dr Munnabhai applies the very same concepts plus many more to hospitals,medical testing equipment etc.

Dr Munnabhai would create order bookings of people interested in using medical facilities like bed, testing equipment and doctors times etc. It would then come with theese same people and offer them the same at non peak hours when the docs, the beds and the test equipment is Wella ( munnabhai speak for FREE)

While it helps the doctors and hospitals etc to make more profitable use of their infrasrtucture and fixed investments , it would i hope also significantly lower down the medical bills and be a great boon to thoose who can't afford the same and have no qualms visiting the fancy hospitals at non peak hours.

And even we can earn additional income by selling healthcare services through 'Munnabhai Prepaid'. Alternately you could place dr munna bhai banner ads in your websites.

Let us now see if this business idea is as big a hit as the movie was.

Colonialism of Geography

2005-05-28T10:16:00.000-07:00

While the whole white world was cribbing about the equation of the middle finger with the Americas by a certain iim cal jokar ( She is a corporate superacheiver but i am an xler ;-) )i came across an extremely interesting article in today's Sunday times. Though i couldn't get the same, there is another very similar article which promises to be an interesting read.

Happy Reading

It is easy for us to become trapped in political and ideological propaganda; it seems that no matter which way we turn, the system is always a few steps ahead of us. Having planned for our frustration and search for answers and truth, the system creates many pathways of distraction and confusion. It seems that every foot that we travel on the path of knowledge, the system forces us back at least halfway (and oftentimes much more), introducing confusion and guiding us back onto the road that they have made for us to follow. The system plays this game so well that we, as its victims, do not even realize when we fall into a trap or conditioning that has been set for us. This is what has been happening with the World Map.

Yes, the world map. While it seems so straightforward and free from corruption, this important educational tool has been successfully used to give our children and ourselves an inaccurate picture of the world and our place within it. This tool of socialization and education has been very effective in promoting the Eurocentric ideology that has been the basis of "modern" education worldwide. What most teachers, students, and parents see as a simple educational tool may be, in reality, one of the system's most effective tools of propaganda. Young children are taught geography and history with the almost exclusive aid of maps, and high school and college level educational courses rely heavily on maps as well. In the United States, the most common map used until today is the Mercator projection that was developed in 1569 by Gerhard Kramer, a native German. This map was valued for its navigational accuracy because straight lines on this map are consistent with compass bearings. Yet the Earth is a sphere, and no map can present a sphere perfectly - one must choose which aspect to preserve: size proportions (equivalency) or shape (conformity). The Mercator map preserves shape, thus greatly distorting land area and size - it preserves the shape of continents and countries, but sizes become distorted as you move away from the equator. The equator is placed 2/3 of the way down the map, showing Germany in the center of the world. The Northern hemisphere (the "developed" world) appears disproportionately large, giving Europe and North America an enormous size advantage, while the Southern hemisphere (the "developing" world) appears disproportionately small. Meanwhile, the Peters Map, within the controversy surrounding it, has proven itself to be a very important map as it shows land area just as it is, banishing the advantage the Northern Hemisphere had grown accustomed to with the traditional map. Yet this map is virtually unknown to us and our children, as the Mercator projection (or copies of) remains the map of choice in the United States for school systems, newscasts, and most other purposes.

It is normal that Europe and North America would promote the Mercator map because the faults of the projection benefit Europe and North America. The colonizers of the world are shown in the center of the map, and their landmasses are shown much larger than their actual physical dimensions. Meanwhile, Africa, a Black continent, is shown much smaller than it really is - Greenland appears to be the same size as Africa, but in reality, Africa is fourteen times bigger than Greenland! South America is shown to be smaller than Europe (South America is almost twice the size of Europe) and India is shown to be equivalent in size to Scandinavia (India is three times the size of Scandinavia)! The size and placement advantages of the Mercator map are solely to the advantage of the predominately White areas, while the areas where people of color predominate are at an enormous disadvantage.

Many other map projections have been created, yet we remain unaware of their existence because of the advantages of the Mercator map to the current system. The Peter's Projection, however, has gained worldwide acknowledgement and use, yet many of us in the United States have not even heard of this important map. Introduced by historian Dr. Arno Peters in 1974, this map immediately caused a whirlwind of debate and controversy. The Peters map, unlike the Mercator map, keeps the land size/area true and sacrifices land shape. Thus, Africa, India, and South America are shown in their true proportions to the rest of the world, and the Northern Hemisphere no longer has the false size advantage over the Southern Hemisphere. And for the first time, the misrepresented country sizes of the traditional map were brought to public awareness, changing the way the world was viewed.

Dr. Peters challenged the world, and the European world took that challenge, denouncing the value of his projection. Many of his claims about the map were shot down, and it was called "perverse and wrongheaded" and "mischievous" in miscellaneous articles. It comes as no surprise that the system would do its best to kill this map, for it doesn't succumb to the view of the world that the system is promoting. Instead, it shows how small Europe and the United States (the "White" world) really are in comparison to Africa, South America, the Middle East, and Asia (the "Black" world). The system sees it as dangerous, as it promotes a more realistic view of the world in regard to land size. Those who criticize and devalue the Peters map seem to be those who are benefiting from the faults of the traditional (Mercator) projection. The Peters map has also challenged the way we see the atlas, as an atlas has been made using only the Peters projection. Traditional atlases consist of many maps of different scales, and most give more pages to Europe and North America. For example, the NGS Atlas gives both Africa and the UK three maps, yet Africa is about 20% of the Earth's land area while the UK has a minute .16% of the Earth's land area! Peters, however, uses a uniform scale throughout the atlas, giving the reader a true sense of country and continent sizes in relation to the world. He gives less space to Europe and more space to Africa and China simply because Africa and China occupy a much larger space in the world than does Europe. The Peters Atlas has, of course, also met with much resistance, yet his social agenda for both his map and his atlas stands strong.

Our children are learning about the world in a classroom - a classroom that most likely uses the Mercator map and atlas. Our news reports show "traditional" (Mercator) maps, as does most of the media. It is rare that a student, young or old, uses a globe for his/her learning experience; in fact, most people will tell you that they cannot remember ever using a globe in school more than once or twice! The constant bombardment of the Mercator map on our children (and on us as adults) leads to a false view of the world and our place within it. Subconsciously, we begin to believe that the Northern Hemisphere (the "white" world) is more important than the Southern Hemisphere (the "black" world), giving power to the system and its practice of oppression and domination. The World Map is a very important tool of social conditioning. Peter's social intent in releasing this map was to fight against the Mercator projection as it "overvalues the white man and distorts the picture of the world to the advantage of the colonial masters of the time." It is time we begin to educate ourselves and our children rather than relying on the schools (the system) to do it for us. The Peters Projection World Map is a great place to begin.

-Colianialism through maps by Rachel Naba
http://theearthcenter.com/ffarchivesmap.html

The agreement with abhishek ghosh

2005-05-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

Abhishek ghosh , one year my junior in REC jamshedpur has readily agreed to become my guru in improving my ability to think. He recommends a strong dose of puzzles, readings, annagrams and a whole list of other things.

Mr ghosh who is currently a codejock with TCS (albeit one who would fail by purpose to comply to their SEICMM level 5 norms). A good mech engg our man now wishes to give GATE in comp sc to go to IISC.

His first puzzle was a rather old one

A man goes one mile south, then one mile east and then one mile north to reach the same spot where could he be?

I replied north pole.

His retort...no an infinite set of points including north pole.
And then he explained

See the lattitudes of earth increase from 0 (np) to maximum in the equator and then back to decreasing . Imagine a lattitude in the southern hemisphere which is a mile long.Imagine u were a mile above that lattitude.So one mile south takes u to this lattitude with 1 mile circumfrence. The east condition takes u on a trek along this lattitude only to make u reach the same spot. Now one mile north will take u back to from where u started ur moves.

He then asked me to imagine lattitude with half a mile in length or even 1/4 or 1/8. Going one mile east is gonna make u reach the same place again.

He didn't stop there. Bugger asked me to imagine the earth as a cube.
Tells me how about a one mile cube, and then replicating the same problem.I tried. The dead centre of the top face would then correspond to the north pole of our mother earth.

Finally he says my north pole answer rt if there is a condition that u meet a polar bear. Antartica apparently bereft of them.

And i thought i was smart and i was rt.:-(

It sure is hard trying to become smart especially by solving puzzles.

PS

Now my next exercise is solving an anagram HASH GIBE? He's OK
and he says anagram internet solver not going to help so do help

the female oligarch

2005-05-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

A long time ago,i was fascinated oligarchs.Modern day Robber barons is how you would best describe them. Theese were individuals who became so immensely rich in the privatization of the assets of the Soviet system that they became konown as the oligarchs. The name implies that they were powerful. They were not the only ones who became rich, but their success put them into a separate class.

Most made money in oil,aluminium,steel and other natural resources that russia was so well endowed in.They controlled the media and helped keep people who helped them retain their seats of power.

And yes they bought football clubs with their spare cash.

Some of theese oligarchs are

Boris Berezovsky
Vladimir Gusinsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Alexander Smolensky
Vladimir Potanin
Vladimir Vinogradov
Mikhail Friedman

I would always wonder why there was no female oligarch amogst them while continuing to read up about how they were robbing the russian government and its people. Were the russian women so nice as to not indulge in corrupt businesses or were russian women never in seats of power in the erstwile soviet system. Why was a reason that always elude me.

And then came the bond flick 'The world is not enough'. Sophie Morceau inspired me to create another script for a bond movie with a female oligarch all out to become the president of russia and sell nuclear arsenal to the axis of evil. After all besides beauty bond had to have a reason to protect the world too. I even created a background for the woman.if the other oligarchs were scientists, mechanics etc this women would be an economist. She would have also had a failed marraige with a politburo members son.Like all bond girls she had to be beautiful. I made her the daughter of a single mother which would make her vunerable to James Bond's charms. My first attempt at script writing took me to 5 pages.But then better sense prevailed and i quit.

Two days back i recieved a presentation about a beautiful female prime minister in Ukraine.Some searches later guess what came out--

Yulia Tymoschenko

Tymoshenko's origins have been the basis of some debate. Some have claimed that her maiden name is Grigyan, and that she is half-Armenian on her father's side. However, her supporters insist that she is ethnically Russian, her maiden name being Telegina. She married Oleksandr Tymoshenko, a son of a mid-level Soviet communist party bureaucrat, in 1979, and began rising through a number of positions under the Soviet system. She graduated from Dnipropetrovs'k State University with a degree in economics in 1984, and went on to gain a candidate degree (the equivalent of a Ph.D.) in economics. She has since authored about 50 papers.

In 1989, she founded a video rental chain which grew to be quite successful. Tymoshenko experienced a rise in power under the Soviet system, but it was after the demise of the Soviet Union that she rose to particular prominence, directing several energy-related companies and acquiring a significant fortune between 1990 and 1998. From 1995 to 1997, Tymoshenko was the president of United Energy Systems of Ukraine, a privately owned company which became the main importer of Russian natural gas in 1996. During that time she was nicknamed "gas princess" in the light of accusations she had sold abroad enormous quantities of stolen Russian gas.

Political career
Tymoshenko made a move into politics in 1996, and was elected as a representative of Kirovohrad oblast, winning a record 92.3% of the vote in her district. She was re-elected in 1998 and 2002. In 1998, she became the Chair of the Budget Committee of the Ukrainian parliament. From 1999 to 2001, Tymoshenko was the deputy prime minister for fuel in the energy sector in the government of Viktor Yushchenko.

Tymoshenko was fired by President Leonid Kuchma in January 2001, on charges of forging customs documents and smuggling Russian natural gas while she was the president of United Energy Systems of Ukraine between 1995 and 1997. She was arrested in February 2001 but was released and cleared of charges several weeks later. According to Tymoshenko, the accusations were fabricated by Kuchma's regime, under the influence of coal industry oligarchs threatened by her efforts to root out corruption and institute market-based reforms.

However, Tymoshenko's critics have suggested that, as a so-called oligarch, her fortune was gained improperly. Some have speculated her familiarity with the illegal conduct of business common in Ukraine uniquely qualifies her to combat corruption. Her former business partner, the former Ukraine Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko is fighting extradition back to Ukraine on allegations of abusing his office for personal gain. He is believed to have sent billions of dollars outside of the country. In addition her husband, Oleksandr, is still in hiding outside of Ukraine facing charges he and his wife describe as unfounded and politically motivated by the former Kuchma administration. Their lawyers are believed to be preparing legal action to dismiss these charges.

- wikipedia.com

A case of real life imitating reel life. Perhaps i should start writing my script again and contact MGM and EON productions :-)